all about flying drones

They Threw Rocks at My Drone

I don’t consider myself
an expert at flying drones, but I’ve had good experiences. I’ve
been traveling as often as possible around the United States, and so
far I’ve flown in almost ten different states. My goal is to
photograph and record something unique from each state – the result
of this project will certainly be very beautiful or entertaining,
depending on what kind of things I come across with. In California, I
captured four drones crashing against each other in the air –
completely unplanned.

In Texas, I captured the
police chasing a car for quite a while. In Nevada, I took pictures of
really strange flowers that remain a mystery to me, and no one’s
been able to name them for me. And these are just examples of my
adventures that included more accidents, possibly criminal acts, and
uncommon wildlife and trees or flowers.

However, how would I have
expected that in one of my most seemingly innocent visits I would see
all of that at once?

My next stop was
Minnesota. One of the most important parts of my project was to keep
track of the changes in laws and regulations for flying drones of
each state. Mainly because of course, I needed to be aware of all the
rules if I wanted to do things safely. But also because it seemed
like an interesting project.

You know, something that
one day will be history. So I buried my nose on the internet and came
out fully informed on all the things Minnesota would and wouldn’t
let me do with my drone. It turns out they had quite the number of
rules. And, sadly, they strongly limited my options for flying.
However, I had just the perfect place, that was apparently legal, and
that would hopefully bring me just what I was looking for.

The Paul Bunyan State
Forest was just what you’d expect. It was big, green and a gorgeous
place for flying drones. I started with a hike myself. I was
surprised by all the life I found there. There was just so much to
do. As I moved, I caught sight of groups of people moving past – with
mountain bikes, with all-terrain vehicles, friends carrying bags to
stay the night camping – it was all very nice. Since I got there
early and winter was still so far away, I allowed myself to think I
had arrived at just the right time. Until I was told I was wrong.

Eager to start flying, I
paused near a spot for park rangers, the people that managed the
forest, protected it and lived for it. I planned to sit around there,
in a comfortable patch of grass, lay out my snacks and just lean back
and relax as my drone went up flying and I stared at the view from
the screen on my controller. However, I was interrupting. The worker
of the park came running towards me. She was stressed, waving her
hands around and messing with her mane of dark brown hair.

“I’m sorry, you came
just at the worst of times!” I remember she said, “We are
drowning in problems and look how early it is!”

I felt bad for the woman
and offered my help in any way that I could. At first, she was
reluctant, but upon noticing my drone, her face lit up. It seemed
that a pair of eyes in the sky was just what she needed that day.

The lady started
explaining all her problems to me. First, there was the fact that,
unbelievably so, three of her coworkers were absent that day –
sickness, vacations, birthday, whatever, they were missing, and she
was struggling to juggle the entire park on her shoulders. So, we got
to work.

We talked about the most
menacing issue first. She had spotted a trail of smoke rising from a
zone where it was strictly prohibited, for safety reasons, to start a
fire. But since she was dealing with emergencies at her place of
work, she had been unable to go check. But, easing our way through
the clouds with my drone, we got there in seconds. It turns out it
wasn’t an evil forest fire. As she had expected, it was just the
result of troublesome young campers.

How to stop them? That was
the question. We watched them with the help of the drone, and they
were clearly having fun, so maybe my new friend would have to go
there and scare them off to save the forest.

However, there were many
other problems to tackle, so I came up with something. Slowly, I
descended the drone upon them… then I left it perfectly still. The
guys noticed it pretty quickly, at first paying it no mind, then
staring back at it, then shouting questions at the object as if it
were to answer. I knew they would find the presence of the drone
strange and uncomfortable, maybe enough to scare them so they would
put down the fire and leave.

To my complete surprise,
one of the guys actually picked up a rock and threw it at my drone. I
screamed, all the way from my place of safety – but hey, drones
aren’t particularly cheap. Not only I moved the drone to dodge the
rock, but the guy had terrible aim. One of his friends then held his
arm and stopped him. They continued to talk, and even though I
couldn’t hear them, I had a pretty good idea. They started to look
around, worry clear in their eyes, as if they were being observed by
more than a drone, perhaps their parents. And that thought alone was
enough to convince them to pick up their stuff, put down the fire and
effectively move away.

My new friend was
delighted with my abilities. And I was convinced that if I helped her
with all her other problems, I would have a much better time than
idly flying the drone over the trees.